Over the festive period I’ll be recapping some of my very favourite Real Weddings from the last 12 months on the wedding blog. It’s been a tough choice! In true Brides Up North style, each wedding featured on these pages is unique, beautiful and gorgeously personal. It’s been an exceptionally fabulous year! Enjoy…

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This afternoon, I bring you the beautiful Real Wedding of Brides Up North reader Lisa and her new husband Gavin. Lisa and Gavin’s Cumbrian countryside celebration was full of all my favourite things – cool cars, beautiful blooms, individuality, steak pies (served at the table), paper pom poms, pink roses, huge smiles and buckets of confetti. Just one thing was missing – my invitation!

Lisa says: We got engaged on the last night of our holiday in Cyprus last October, it was typical laid back Gavin style, we were just chilling in our hotel room, I thought he was joking! We celebrated with a glass of shandy… all we had in the room was a can of lager and some lemonade!

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We were married on Saturday 25th August 2012 at St Johns Church, Levens, near Kendal, Cumbria, with reception a mile up the road at Heaves Farm, Levens – my parent’s farm where I grew up.

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Since I was little me and my Dad joked about having my wedding reception in the big stone barn at the top of the farmyard, so when we got engaged it was the obvious choice, we wanted something different, unique and personal for our wedding, and the barn was all those things. It was a lot of work but it looked magical and everyone absolutely loved it. Unfortunately it did have baby calves in it until three weeks before the day which was a bit of a worry…

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We stuck to a vintage rose, village fete type theme, with old fashioned cut glass cake stands filled with flowers for the centre pieces, lots of bunting and vintage inspired stationary designed by my brother with a dusky pink and pale green colour scheme.

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I wore a Lou Lou Bridal tea length dress from Kokoa Bride in Penrith. I’d always wanted a short wedding dress and it made perfect sense with our wedding being on a farm, no worries about my dress getting dirty! It was so easy and fun to wear, I absolutely loved wearing it and loved that it was so unusual. I wanted to totally surprise people.

My three adult bridesmaids wore dusky pink tea length dresses from Very.com and the two little flower girls wore beautifully embroidered ivory dresses from M&S and flower garlands, they chose the dresses themselves because they were the most twirly! The boys all wore grey suits, silver polka dotted waistcoats and green ties/cravats from Marrime in Kendal.

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Gavin’s sister Joanne and his Mum’s friend Sue took charge of the flowers, the main flowers were vintage looking roses and the rest I left up to them, they were beautiful. Each bouquet was tied with a piece of lace from my Nan’s wedding dress.

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Gavin is the most laid back last minute person ever, so to get him involved we agreed he’d be in charge of sorting the transport… I was honestly expecting a tractor and trailer when a beautiful vintage VW camper arrived for the bridesmaids and a VW white soft top beetle for me and my Dad. I was over the moon and they were perfect, the boy did good.

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Gavin’s sister and brother in law have a shop in Kendal called Armstrong Ward Lifestore, its beautiful so we asked them to help with decorations, they came up with the giant pink and green tissue paper pom poms we suspended with fishing wire from the ceiling, all 120 of them!

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We used local caterer Liz Clarke for the food, when discussing potential mains we both immediately suggested Liz’s famous auction mart steak pie, it is a massive hit in the auction! It went down a storm and just suited our day perfectly. We also served rose veal burgers from our farm (Heaves Farm Veal) for the evening meal which were delicious.

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Our photographer, Joe Mather was a friend of mine from school, it was nice to have him there taking pictures instead of a complete stranger and we are absolutely delighted with our photos, he captured the feeling of our wedding day perfectly.

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We surprised one person on each table with a parcel, the tag said ‘here’s a little gift for you, please DO NOT OPEN until we ask you to’. After the starters were cleared we asked those people to stand and open it, each parcel had an individual novelty apron in especially chosen for them, and asked them to serve the steak pie we’d chosen for lunch! It was very funny seeing people’s reactions, the whole room just erupted in laughter, it really set the atmosphere for the rest of the day.

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We had both a DJ and a live band, 24-7 who had been recommended to us by a friend, we loved them, they were perfect for our relaxed, party atmosphere, the dance floor was full all night.

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For evening dessert we surprised everyone by arranging a local ice cream van to arrive with its music blaring, my Dad told the story in his speech of how when I was a little girl I always heard the ice cream van go passed down to the village and it never stopped for us up at the farm, my Dad always promised one day he’d get it to come… it was brilliant, and such a great, no fuss novelty dessert.

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I had a few favourite bits! loved walking in to the church, kissing my new husband, walking out of the church as man and wife, seeing everyone open their aprons at dinner, the speeches, dancing all night and the ice cream van!

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I also loved the run up to the day, the barn was a hive of activity for about three weeks before the wedding, it was so much fun and so many people were involved; from ironing the borrowed bunting to fluffing or tying up pom poms, putting up the tent, painting signs and even the aunties and grandmas helping with the constant supply of tea and cake!

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After the wedding we travelled around New Zealand for three weeks in a camper van, it was amazing! We swam with dolphins, climbed a glacier, went white water rafting and even milked some cows (Gavin’s a farmer…!)

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My top tip for other Brides Up North would be to be as organised as you possibly can well before the day, use your family and friends wherever possible -they really do want to be involved, and finally accept that something will go wrong…it’s how you deal with it that matters! Enjoy every second of it and relax!

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Congratulations Lisa & Gavin!

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Fancy seeing your own Real Wedding featured on these pages? I’d love to hear from you – get in touch!